Date: 1778, 1779

"Yes, my child, thy happiness is engraved, in golden characters, upon the tablets of my heart! and their impression is indelible; for, should the rude and deep-searching hand of Misfortune attempt to pluck them from their repository, the fleeting fabric of life would give way, and in tearing from...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"I had many witticisms to endure from the Branghtons, upon account of my staying so long with the Scotch mope, as they call him; but I attend to them very little, for my whole heart was filled with pity and concern."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Perhaps had I first seen you, in your kind and sympathising bosom I might have ventured to have reposed every secret of my soul; and then--but let me pursue my journal."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Though ev'ry beauty is her own, / And though her mind each virtue fills, / Anville,--to her power unknown, / Artless, strikes,--unconscious kills!"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"'Oh, Sir,' exclaimed I, 'that you could but read my heart!--that you could but see the filial tenderness and concern with which it overflows! you would not then talk thus,--you would not then banish me your presence, and exclude me from your affection!'"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Hasten, then, my love, to bless me with thy presence, and to receive the blessings with which my fond heart overflows!"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"Cecilia was wholly unable to devise any answer to these effusions of contempt and anger; and therefore his harangue lasted without interruption, till he had exhausted all his subjects of complaint, and emptied his mind of ill-will."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"He must, upon no account, sustain a conversation with any spirit, lest he should appear, to his utter disgrace, interested in what is said: and when he is quite tired of his existence, from a total vacuity of ideas, he must affect a look of absence, and pretend, on the sudden, to be wholly lost ...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"In the midst of this jargon, to which the fulness of Cecilia's mind hardly permitted her to listen, there suddenly appeared at the door of the apartment, Mr. Albany, who, with his usual austerity of countenance, stopt to look round upon the company."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"But I'll make him believe that it's necessary, in order to give him something to think of, for really his poor head is so vacant, that I am sure if one might but play upon it with sticks, it would sound just like a drum."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)